But when this right of use, inert (if I may say so) as it was with regard to the other usufructuaries, became active and paramount,--that is, when the usufructuary converted his right to personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought, this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.
And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to designate the right of use.
Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin, _jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while possession became assimilated to farm-rent.
Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better, from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M.Cousin, we assume it to be the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called _sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the meaning by a verbal equivocation.
People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS.

But the abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing, while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term is quite another.

The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas.

All our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of abstractions.

In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike deficient.